My Surreal Life

As I sit here in a collapsible metal office, on the edge of a port in the middle of Kuwait, eating green eggs and ham (Sam I am) that is served in the chow tent every morning... it occurs to me that you might find my surreal life interesting... I know I do.

Firstly, my apartment is full of surreal qualities. Nearly all the apartment buildings I've seen have businesses in the ground floors. My building has a fish store , (fish are friends, not food), a hair "saloon" for kids (yes, that's the way the spell it, and they mean salon, I assume. I suspect that a "salon" is something in Arabic they want to avoid confusing with...), and a few other unidentified stores that either haven't been open when I'm there, or I haven't gotten up the courage to explore.

Next, the elevators are alive. Seriously. They seem to experience actual human emotions: boredom, hunger, resentment... I mean of COURSE an elevator would be bored, but let me explain the other emotions. The reason I say they're hungry is because they will try to take a bite out of you if you don't get in fast enough. And these aren't wimpy Made in the USA elevators, these things close fast and hard. They do have that big strip of plastic that will prevent them from biting down hard, of course, but unlike their American brothers (and sisters?), they are a bit slower in releasing (picture smacking an animal on the nose to get it to release it's hold on something... like your leg...). When they do open, it's slow, and grudgingly... you can almost feel it's reluctance...

As for the elevators being resentful, case in point: I was leaving for work the other morning, and the damn thing tried to bite me. In typical testosterone fashion, I kicked the door (trying to teach it respect, I guess... *grunt*). When I got to the ground floor, the door only opened 6 inches... and just stuck. So I could SEE outside, just couldn't GET outside... I had to force the door open... and left it there, stuck open, glaring at me...

For the record, that's TWO dangers I hadn't considered when deploying: bad drivers and elevators.

Second in my surreal life is whoever cleans my apartment. I have a vague recollection of SOMEONE in my apartment at some point during my first day on the ground, and they were doing "housekeeping" type things, but I assumed they were just cleaning up for the previous tenant... or making sure I had everything I needed. I haven't seen her since, but then I noticed my dirty clothes were gone a couple days later. My bed is made every night when I get home, there are clean clothes (first they were on my bed, but now they're ironed and hanging in my closet ...) My dishes are washed and put away, and my furniture is sometimes re-arranged back to the way it was originally (I like to move it around to better suit me...).

This wouldn't seem so surreal if I actually had a better IDEA of the person doing it... I don't even really need a name, just a face. I was getting fairly spoiled while I was in NJ when I dropped off my laundry to have it done... but at least there I knew what the person looked like. Here I don't have a clue what the person looks like that is seeing my dirty underwear... how's THAT for surreality?

Another surreal moment was when I got home last night. I walked in the door, and caught a quick movement on the wall behind the door. Fearing some monstrous Arabian Spider or something, I stepped back and looked just in time to see a small lizard scamper up the wall. So I guess I've got a pet now. At least I know what IT looks like... I'll even give it a name... "Lizzy"

My drive from work at night has a VERY surreal quality... We're in a very industrialized area, and surrounded by refineries. If you've never seen a refinery, they're amazing. At night, it's lit up like a city, miles wide, with "smoke" stacks shooting great gouts of flame into the air, lighting up the sky.

I work in a collection of tents and POCs (Portable Operation Centers). Network cabling, telephone, and power cables run in all directions. Our meals our served "buffet style" in the chow tent, and it's surprisingly good. Especially Mexican Night. Every other night is some variation of beef and chicken, and lunches are usually MREs.

Well, this has been a lot longer than I inteneded, and I've got a bunch of things I need to get done. Still working on the 'net problem in my apartment, so I'll be able to get those pictures up pretty soon. I looked out my window into the bay, and saw some HUGE freighters and tankers (yet another surreal quality...), and took a few pictures and a video.

Love to everyone!

Local Weather report, etc...

Local Weather

I'll place the link up by the location when I get my 'net connection working again, and am doing this on my own system, not from onsite.

Just another day here, minor goings-on, nothing exciting. Already starting to get in that groove of work, eat, sleep, etc... That's not a bad thing, makes the time pass faster, and I spend less money (ask Shelley!).

I finally got a cell phone (spent way too much, as usual), but it's got all kinds of helpful features, and it's a tri-band, so I'll be able to use it anywhere in the world I can get cell service. I'm not going to post the number here, because it's just too expensive for everyone to call! If you need to hear my voice, just ask and I'll Audblog something ... hehe :P

That's all for now. I've got a bunch more pics, and I'll be posting some as soon as I am sure it's ok. I've got some that I may have to do some editing on to make sure there's nothing revealed.

...sheesh

Sept. 11 call transcripts released

Check out this link, and notice the picture of the media hounds that can't even wait to get to their office to read the transcripts.

Also, note that it was the NY Times, and NOT the victim's families that actually went to court to get these transcripts released! Something about that just pisses me off...

The biggest reason I didn't post anything yesterday was that there just wasn't that much to say. We've got all kinds of technical and human drama playing out here, but nothing that anyone but those it affects would be interested in hearing about it, believe me. My 'net connection in my apartment still isn't working, and the support number we have to call has been out of service for days now. For added complication, OUR support people (the ones responsible for taking care of us over here) have been out of country for the past few days too... so...

So, that's what's happening here... I'm amassing some decent pics, but until I have time at home (and the connection) to organize it, I'm not going to upload them. I should have a decent enough collection by this weekend to justify either going to a 'net cafe or going to someone else's apartment to upload...

Also, I changed the 'blog's timestamp to reflect my local time, not yours. If I get REALLY ambitious I'll add a function that will show my time and your local time (since there are people in several different time zones reading this...). That may or may not be interesting to you...

That's all for now, take care of yourselves and each other!

... just killing time ...

yeah... I was a little bored.



later!

... another day in Paradise?

Nothing really exciting to report, so I thought I'd try to give you a better idea about the situation here:

Right now I'm living in a great apartment about 30 minutes from where we're stationed. My teammates are living in another complex about 15-20 minutes further out, so we're trying to coordinate a 3 bedroom in my building, just for simplicity. We only have one vehicle between the three of us, so the logistics takes a bit of creativity. We're trying to procure another vehicle, but for now, we're just making due. The building they're in is a lot nicer, with amenities like a pool on the 12th floor (which never gets used), and a pool table in the lobby. My building also has a pool, on the ground floor, and the apartments are MUCH bigger... so we're going to have to make some decisions... (I know I know.. rough life, huh?) Actually, all the amenities are a somewhat moot point, since we really don't have much time to use them. Things are only slightly more hectic now than they usually would be, but time will tell.

I'm working 12 hour shifts, but that's also a bit of a moot point, since we're all on 24 hour call. Being the computer/network nerd, I'm (theoretically) more in demand than the other two, but that hasn't been the case yet. I was a bit relieved when the Exchange (mail) server went down this morning, so I could actually prove my usefulness.

For those of you that don't know about Kuwait, I'll paint you a bit of a picture (as I understand it). Apparently, just for being a natural-born Kuwaiti citizen, you are "provided" for... in other words, you don't really have to work. You are paid for being a native of Kuwait. There are, literally, twice as many non-natives here as there are natives, and their sole purpose here is for service and commerce. Stores, restaurants, hair/beauty salons, etc... ALL of these are owned and operated by non-natives. Egyptians, Filipino, Asian, etc... Most nationalities have some kind of stake in the actual businesses in Kuwait. It makes for an interesting culture.

I went to get a haircut the other day, for the bargain price of 5 KD (Kuwaiti Dinars), a little more than $15 USD. This isn't much more than what it costs in the states (at some places...), but the service is incredible. THe place we went to was owned by an Egyptian, and the haircut was the least of the process. I don't have much hair, so that was the easy part, of course. But I also was served a Turkish tea, a GREAT beard trim, lathered and straight-razor shave (yes, not even in country 72 hours and I already had a foreigner with a sharp object to my throat), neck/head "manipulated" (popped, chiro (Cairo?) style), back rubbed, some kind of pink goo smeared on my face (like a chemical face peel), and had my hair washed. Try getting all THAT for $15

Another impression of Kuwait I just HAVE to give you is the traffic. Oh... my... GOD! Remember what I said about traffic in New Jersey? Did I actually say it was the worst I had ever seen? Not even in the running anymore. The drivers in Kuwait are just ... terrible. There's no word in the English language that could possibly relate to you how incredibly bad the drivers are around here. But I'll bet there's a word or six about bad drivers in Arabic. I'm not exaggerating here, and as proof, I plan on taking pictures on the car wrecks between work and home. No less than 10 cars are smashed on the side of the road, and they sit there for weeks, apparently...

Well, that's all I've got for now, hopefully our 'net connection in the room will be up and running tonight, and I can start uploading some pictures. I bought all the power converters and transformers I need, and hooked my PC up to the TV. Everything is working great (after a 45 minute chkdsk scan on the system...).

More later!

Hello from Kuwait... emphasis on the wait...

Seems like doing everything around here requires a "wait", so this place is definitely appropriately named... I guess Kuhotterthanhell was too hard to fit on the tourism brochures...

I went to the airport last night, got bounced around from different offices, people, and finally found my footlocker. Everything seems to be working, but I haven't picked up a transformer yet so I haven't been able to power up the computer. I'll check it out tonight, and keep my fingers crossed. There wasn't any real apparent damage to the case, so I think everything should be ok... =)

I also found a lot of the soldiers here are computer gamers, and it seems they even have LAN parties when they can. Picture a bunch of guys (and girls, I guess), sitting around in a bunk or tent, with network cables running everywhere, plugged into laptops, and playing... umm.. I don't know what. One of the guys even said they played Battlefield 1942, but I just can't imagine what kind of laptop they would need to do that. I'll jump into their next one and find out...

That's all I've got for now. Our 'net was down in the apartment again last night, so I didn't get a chance to get back online. I've got to call tech support... I hate doing that. =)

Love to all!